French bishops sorry for wartime silence - on anti-Semitism during Nazi occupation in World War II - Brief Article

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 10, 1997

DRANCY, France -- At a ceremony near a former Jewish deportation camp, French bishops made an unprecedented apology for their church's "silence" in the face of anti-Semitic policies during Nazi occupation in World War II.

As a crowd of several hundred Christians and Jews listened Sept. 30 in the Paris suburb of Drancy, Bishop Olivier de Berranger of the St. Denis diocese declared that, particularly during the initial 1940-42 occupation period, "too many pastors of the church, by their silence, offended the church itself and its mission."

"Today we confess that this silence was an error," he said. "We implore God's forgiveness and ask the Jewish people to hear these words of repentance."

The bishop stood in front of a cattle car that has been placed as a memorial in a town park Experts estimate that 75,000 Jews passed through the Drancy camp on their way to Nazi death camps. Several French bishops voiced strong opposition when the Jewish roundups became known after 1942, but few church leaders spoke out when anti-Jewish laws were passed in 1940.

"We recognize that the church in France failed at that time in her mission of educating consciences, and thus bears, along with the Christian people, the responsibility of not having brought help immediately," Berranger said. He said this was a period "when protest and protection were possible and necessary, even if there were countless acts of courage later on."

The bishop was flanked at the evening ceremony by Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris, whose mother, a Jew, died at Auschwitz after being deported through Drancy.

French Jewish leaders who attended the service expressed appreciation for the apology and also paid tribute to those Christians who helped Jews during the war and the bishops who later spoke out.

"Your request for forgiveness is so intense, so strong, so poignant, that it cannot help but be heard by the surviving victims and their children. It finds a deep echo in our hearts and in our spirits,n said Henri Hajdenberg, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France. "Without any doubt, the historic significance of your declaration opens up new paths in the field of Christian-Jewish relations," he said.

The bishops' five-page "Declaration of Repentance" explored the reasons for the lack of courage shown by bishops and other spiritual leaders in France. It cited on the one hand an overly docile attitude toward the established political power, and on the other a fear of reprisals against Catholic organizations. It said the pastors also apparently underestimated the church's influence in affecting policies of other social institutions in occupied France.

The declaration also highlighted the historical church context of the anti-Jewish persecution during World War II. For many centuries up until the Second Vatican Council, it said, a strong anti-Jewish tradition was evident at many levels of church teaching, in theology, in preaching and the liturgy. "On this fertile terrain flowered the poisonous plant of hatred of the Jews," it said. This implies a "serious responsibility" for the church, to the extent that its pastors and leaders allowed anti-Semitic teaching to develop, it said.

While the declaration was mainly apologetic in tone, it included praise for acts of courage by several bishops who objected publicly once the anti-Jewish persecution had worsened in France. Well before then, other Catholics -- including religious, priests and laity -- took personal risks to help Jewish friends, it said. Acting anonymously and discreetly, they "saved the honor of the church." The declaration also noted that during the Nazi occupation, people in France did not know the "true I dimensions of Hitler's genocide."

The French daily Catholic newspaper La Croix reported that Archbishop Jules Geraud Saliege of Toulouse had issued an unambiguous pastoral letter in August 1942 with the explicit instruction, "to be read in all churches, without comment." He wrote, "The Jews are men; the Jews are women, they are members of the human race. They are our brothers. This no Christian can forget." Pope Pius XII personally asked that Vatican Radio transmit the full text of Saliege's letter.

Adrien Nemoz, who was responsible for the underground resistance newspaper Temoignage Chretien (Christian Witness), remembered those days and admitted that the church was "silent," but added, "I do not know of a single bishop who said anything anti-Semitic."